During the month of February I got to go to the state of Kerala. Even though there were some problems at first the following two weeks were the best time in India for me so far. The best of my time was spent in Trivandrum. However I did spend a couple days in Kollum and that is were I saw the ocean for the first time in five months. Seeing the ocean was a great feeling, the air was so clean coming off the water. I sat on the beach next to a dead washed up puffer fish for a while before I was surrounded by a bunch of kids wanting me to take pictures of them. I took some picture of them and left. After that I ate some bad fried rice and it put me out of commission for a while. The other note worthy thing in kollum was going on the back water on a big tour boat that only had me and another passenger on it. It was nice to see the type of fishing they do over here especially since both traditional and modern fishing boats both go out to fish at the same time.
The next stop for me was Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram every body just says Trivandrum. Trivandrum is a nice city it has wide roads and very little trash on the streets. In Trivandrum I got to stay with the Jacob family. There are Indian but they have the last name Jacob because they are Christians. Surprisingly 40% of people in Kerala are Christian, which meant one thing to me BEEF. The first meal I had in Trivandrum was a hamburger and I had some doughnuts for dessert. It was wonderful. But I spent 10 days total in Trivandrum and got to see a lot of things thanks to Renju Jacobs who spoke with a Irish accent since he had just got done with college in Ireland. I went to the beach a couple of times and they were amazing beaches but it was weird on the beach it was almost only foreigners. The beaches there were some of the best I’ve seen and hardly crowded. Other than seeing beaches I got to go up a Mountain to a tea plantation/hotel making 22 hairpins up and 22 down. I went to a lion safari park and got see some lions close up. I also got to see some a parade of people with metal stuck all through there body. Along with many more less note worthy adventures. I got to play nightly soccer games with all the kids in the neighborhood. It is sad to say but good to say I became a part of the neighborhood there more than I have in Ranchi. All in all I was sad to have to leave Trivandrum with only spending a short time there.
Next stop was Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. The first day I was there I went to a Yoga center not for Yoga but to take a bath in mercury water. Sounds strange but it did make me feel funny. Not to worry there wasn’t that much mercury. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the place but no cameras were allowed. Other than that I went on a short hike up a hill trying to over come a fear of venomous snakes. On that note I did get to see a wild cobra in Trivandrum but not a King Cobra. After a couple days in Coimbatore I headed back to Ranchi.

me on the train the puffer fish

My Christmas Break

In India schools have Christmas break too. Christmas break started on Christmas eve and was scheduled to go until the 4th. For Christmas I went to my first host families house where they were throwing a party. It was sunny and warm which made it feel more like a summer lawn party. A Santa came to the party and most of the little kids were excited to see him. The Santa wore a mask to make him look like Santa but all it really did was make him look creepy. After the party I went back to my host family's apartment and celebrated Christmas by eating some candy and lighting a fire in the fire place. There was the occasional fire work that was shot into the sky but that wasn't to impressive considering people shoot fireworks of for almost any occasion and there is usually at least one shot off every night. I gave out some Alaska things to my host family. They are going to have a lot of Alaska things soon enough though since their son is in Sitka. During the normal days of Christmas Break I started reading a lot which I hadn't done much before. When new years rolled around I celebrated it that by sitting by the fire and watching TV. School was supposed to start on the 4th but was cancelled for a week because the it was too cold. It was 43 degrees at night and was getting up to around 65 degrees by the mid day on the coldest days of the break. I stared school again on the 12th which turned out to be a half day.